


familiar ghosts on unfamiliar faces

by rarmaster



Series: don't you worry child [2]
Category: Homestuck, Kingdom Hearts, Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types, Tales of Symphonia
Genre: (none of those involved were actually human but anyway), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Gen, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, dave and repliku are just kinda here, hoo buddy they all got so much trauma to unpack and also not trip over re: each other, mostly focuses on Kratos+Shadow interaction, references to human (...?) experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 16:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19705528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: Team M gets dropped somewhere that sets all of them on edge, and subsequently they try and not trigger each other any worse than they've already been triggered. Riku's doing mostly okay. Kratos is not. Shadow's dealing. Dave's fine with the scenery but not much else. They hold together.(Part of DYWC, a crossover series.)





	familiar ghosts on unfamiliar faces

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to stw 2.0, but with characters I give a shit about. more about the teams [here.](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/4030.html?style=site)
> 
> content warnings: dave and riku are dealing with past abuse (though theirs is barely discussed), while kratos and shadow deal with the trauma that comes from being unwillingly experimented on. human experimentation is a topic on the table, not that anyone talks about it, the scenery just brings back a lot of bad memories. 
> 
> housekeeping for AU bullshit  
> > Repliku is from FtPverse, a giant KH fic i wrote, and goes by Riku  
> > Kratos is from YWKON, a giant ToS/XC2 crossover AU i wrote. he's a xc2 blade.

The portal drops the four of them unceremoniously into a white room.

A white _operating_ room.

Shadow tenses a little at the sight of it, old things barely remembered bubbling uncomfortably in the back of his mind. It seems he is not the only one having a problem, at least. Riku has tensed considerably, eyeing the unbroken whiteness with distaste, and Kratos—Kratos doesn’t look good at all. He blinks rapidly, like he’s trying much harder than Shadow is to force unwelcome memories out of his mind. Dave is the only one of them who seems to be unaffected.

“Y’all good?” Dave asks, a laugh hiding his concern.

“I am alright,” Shadow insists. It’s just memories. They cannot hurt him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Riku adds. He pushes his hair out of his face, scowling. “It’s not—just bad memories, I guess. All the white. I’m good, though. …Kratos?”

“I’m—” Kratos begins, eyes squeezed shut. “Just—The sooner we get out, the better.”

“Agreed,” Shadow says. He skates to the door that stands ajar, kicking it the rest of the way open. It cracks against the wall, loud enough to make Riku and Dave both jump. Shadow regrets it the moment he’s done it, but he can’t exactly take the deed back. “Sorry,” he apologizes.

“What nah I’m fine,” Dave says, in one breath, his laugh is too shaky.

“Don’t worry about it,” Riku insists, and he at least sounds genuine.

“Can we _move_?” Kratos asks, urgent. He sounds like he’s having trouble breathing.

The bad news is that they seem to be in abandoned ( _at least, Shadow hopes it’s abandoned_ ) hospital facility of some kind ( _Shadow also hopes it’s a hospital_ ). Riku relaxes once there is more color to be seen, but Kratos only gets more tense, eyes watching every corner like he expects to be attacked at any second. Shadow grumbles under the harsh fluorescent lights, the brightness hard on his eyes—he’s doing better, though. The initial room set him on edge, and they pass windows that look into more testing rooms, but so long as he is not in there, so long as he is not facing more tests they have set up for him, so long as no one is taking more of the seemingly endless samples of his blood—

( _Most of those samples had been for Maria’s sake, at least. But the process had still been uncomfortable._ )

“Kratos,” comes Riku’s voice, gentle. Shadow only sends a glance back at his companions before looking ahead again. If he can move faster than everyone else, he might as well use that to his advantage. ( _Not that he can move TOO fast._ ) “You think it’ll help at all if you don’t have to see all of this? Because if you wanna… close your eyes, then I can lead you by the hand or something.”

“Unfortunately, we’re well past the point where I can stand physical contact of any sort, so that would be worse, actually,” Kratos answers, voice tight for how many words he manages to articulate.

“Butts,” Riku sighs.

“Hang on,” Dave says. That’s all the warning he gives before time stops and starts again, something Shadow only notices because he was mid-stride and the split-second stutter in the flow of time is enough to disrupt his balance. Not enough to topple him, but enough to notice. The fact that when time starts again Dave is standing at the head of the group is also a pretty good giveaway.

“What’d you do?” Riku asks, ever curious.

“Tried to see if there was a faster way out,” Dave answers, looking a little tired. He’s good at hiding it, but his usually tense shoulders droop now, and he’s rubbing, frustrated, at his face. “Unfortunately, we seem to be balls deep underground, so we can’t exactly make like dead birds and throw ourselves out a window to a quick and merciless freedom. I did find the closest elevator, though. Beats the stairs.”

“Thank you,” Kratos mumbles, embarrassed.

“Sure, man, I don’t wanna see you do any pirouetting off the metaphorical handle of your sanity as much as you don’t wanna do any of said pirouetting,” Dave answers. Shadow still has never figured out why exactly Dave talks like that. Maybe it’s like Eggman, and he likes hearing the sound of his own voice, except Dave at least fills his sentences with nonsensical metaphors instead of egotistical bragging. Shadow prefers the metaphors.

Dave nods for them to follow him down a sharp left instead of continuing forward down the path. They do so, Kratos at the rear now that Dave isn’t. Before long they come to a darker hallway, and Shadow relaxes a little under the softer lights. More windows looking into more testing rooms line the hallway, high-security doors positioned next to each. Maybe… _not_ testing rooms, then?

“Anyway, uh, fair warning,” Dave says. “Some pretty freaky shit we’re gonna pass by here, so if you get queasy easy maybe try not to do a lot of looking? Unfortunately any elevator we wanna hit up is past this point so, that’s balls.”

Shadow looks, out of curiosity. …So much for this being a run-of-the-mill hospital, then. Corpses of mutated, mutilated bodies are strewn throughout the rooms. It’s horrible to look at, really. Shadow thinks briefly of—the prototypes. Lifeforms engineered on the journey to perfecting him. Many of them were unstable. Many of them died as gruesomely as this.

“Oh, holy shit,” Riku says, the sight startling a swear out of him. “What’d they _do_ to these—” But he breaks off in horror and anger.

“Warned you, bro,” Dave mumbles, hands in his pockets. Impossible to tell where he’s looking behind those sunglasses.

“Let’s go,” Shadow says, but—

Kratos has stopped moving. He stands, fixated and horrified, like he wants to look away but cannot. Shadow thinks again of the prototypes ( _body shaking lungs tight as Maria gripped his hand and tugged him away, away_ ) and wonders what Kratos is seeing, wonders if their thoughts are anywhere close to the same.

 _(_ “ _I was… one of the lucky ones,” is all Kratos says, when asked, later, but that’s enough.)_

“Kratos, hey, Kratos,” Riku says, hastily. “Stay with us, buddy. We don’t got much further to go—do we?” He looks to Dave, hopeful, then gets distracted. “Actually, maybe there’s a way to turn off the lights in there so we don’t _have_ to see…”

Shadow thinks Riku’s plan is a good one, and scans his eyes over the wall, looking for a control panel, but—

“Come on, man, you gotta stop looking,” Dave says, stepping so he stands between Kratos and the window. He means well, but even Shadow can see he gets just a little too close.

Spell broken but a worse one cast over him, Kratos staggers back, sword snapping into his hands in a flash of terrified red, and that’s too close, too. Dave jolts, his own sword sliding into reality from wherever _he_ keeps it, raised but his posture unsteady, mouth running—

“Hey hey hey no need for swords, jegus,” he says, voice tight. “Sorry man alright??”

This is obviously a recipe for disaster. So is what Shadow’s about to do, but his plan minimizes damages. He can take it. Dave and Riku don’t have to.

He snaps the limiters off his wrists and holds them in one hand, lunging forward and grabbing Kratos with the other. He gathers all the chaos in his veins, and he _pulls._ Dave said they were underground, right? So aim _up._

Chaos snaps, ripples, yanks them away, then drops them unceremoniously on their knees in gravel and rubble. For an emerald-less chaos control? Not too bad, Shadow.

He’s dropped his limiters. He moves to pick them up—

Kratos’ sword presses against his neck.

“Don’t move,” Kratos spits.

“I need to put these back on,” Shadow says, slowly. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

A chaos shield would probably be seen as an act of aggression. So Shadow just keeps moving, ignoring the pressure of steel against his fur. He moves slow, projects his movements, picks up the golden rings and snaps them back in place. Chaos is siphoned suddenly off from him, and he lets out a breath of relief.

( _He’s fairly stable, as the Ultimate Lifeform, but too much unfiltered chaos energy, and he could end up just like one of those failed prototypes._ )

“There,” Shadow says. He hesitates, a moment, then looks up at his companion. “Kratos?”

Kratos’ eyes are still somewhat glassy, and he’s trembling. But he does move his sword, holds it on the defensive, knuckles white. “Just- what the fuck,” he says, tight. “I don’t- why would you—”

“Did you want to _stay_ there?” Shadow asks, filling Kratos’ stammering silence. Maybe that’s too mean, but he’s a little on edge, too. “It was the fastest way out.”

Kratos says nothing. His eyes dart around, taking stock of everything around them—no fluorescent lights, no oppressive walls, just dirt and rubble and a skyline orange with pollution. Shadow can’t really call the sight _calming,_ himself, but it seems to do something for Kratos. He takes a shuddering breath. His sword vanishes in another burst of red that matches the lines etched in his skin and the crystal in his collarbone. After a moment, he sits down, eyes squeezed shut.

Chances are Kratos has a better idea of how to calm himself down than Shadow could even guess, so Shadow leaves him to it. He hopes they aren’t too far from Dave and Riku, in the meantime. But there’s no way an emerald-less chaos control could get him more than fifty meters, especially not when he had a tagalong.

Hm.

“…sorry for being hasty,” Shadow says, quiet. He’s inherently impatient, himself, but Rogue always reminds him that not everyone likes living at his speed and… Speed usually isn’t the answer, when dealing with situations like these. Panic attacks don’t generally like being rushed. But. “I hated being in there as much as you did,” he whispers, in offering.

Kratos cracks an eye open. He doesn’t say anything, but the question’s loud enough.

“I’m a weapon bred in a lab,” Shadow explains. “They experimented on me, too.”

Kratos’ other eye comes open, and he recoils a little, in surprise. “How did you…?” he begins.

“A guess,” Shadow admits, to answer the question Kratos doesn’t finish. Maybe he should have given Kratos the time _to_ finish, but why bother when he knew what the question was? “That place wouldn’t have set you so on edge if you hadn’t been.”

And, though he won’t say it, he’s seen the scar on Kratos’ chest, too. Maria had scars like that. Surgery to remove tumors, transplant dying organs with healthy ones. He hadn’t asked where Kratos’ scar was from, because it wasn’t any of his business, but knowing it exists paired with Kratos’ reaction to that horrible place they just left make Shadow pretty sure it’s not any kind of regular surgical scar. And two plus two makes four, so.

He sends a cautious look at Kratos. The man looks better, his breathing more even, trembling less. He sits and holds his hands loosely together, middle finger on his left tracing the open red circle on the back of his right in slow, continuous motion. Shadow’s worried, despite himself.

“You okay?” he asks.

Kratos hesitates, but nods. “Better. …Thank you for getting me out of there.”

“Sure thing,” Shadow says, shrugging. He feels like he should apologize for being so rude about it, but can’t make himself say the words. He doesn’t get the chance, anyway.

“There they are,” comes Dave’s voice.

“Thank goodness,” comes Riku’s, and Shadow turns in time to see Riku descending the rubble rapidly to check on them.

“Wait fuck,” comes Dave’s voice, again. “I have to go back now and—god dammit.”

“Sorry bro, but you know we gotta keep these loops stable as hell,” answers Dave’s voice. He doesn’t sound sorry. Shadow watches as one of two Daves groans and vanishes with a quiet _pop_ from this portion of the timeline, and the remaining Dave lifts off the ground and floats casually down to greet them. “Thanks for ditching us, Shadow, real nice of you.”

Shadow bristles.

“Look, it’s fine now that we’re out of there,” Riku interjects. “You’re alright, right Kratos?”

Kratos nods, tired.

Riku breathes a sigh of relief, then makes himself comfortable on the ground, carefully not sitting too close to anyone. “Cool,” he says. “Then let’s all catch our breaths and we can figure out what to do next after. That sound good?”

Kratos nods again and Dave voices nonchalant agreement. Shadow thinks about complaining for the sake of complaining, but that would just be rude, so he bites his tongue and nods and busies himself with drawing nonsense in the dirt as Riku’s and Dave’s voices wash over him.


End file.
